1416934715(FY) by Cameron Dokey Read Free Book Online

breath. “I would be sorry to think any words of mine had caused unhappiness,” he went on. “Particularly after all your care.”
    “They haven’t,” I said. “You took me by surprise, that’s all. Good night.”
    “Good night,” he said.
    The kitchen was silent for many moments after he had gone.
    “It’s too bad Raoul can’t go with him,” I remarked at last. “They would make a good pair.”
    “Indeed they would,” Old Mathilde replied. “Perhaps they will get their chance yet.”
    “What do you wish for, Mathilde?’ I suddenly inquired.
    “That the wishes of those I love come true,” she replied. “No more questions now. Its time for bed.”

S IX
    That winter was the coldest any of us could recall. The ground froze solid, though we had no snow. Day after day, the sea outside our windows churned like an angry cauldron. If you put your bare hand on the outside of the house, you could burn the skin on your fingers, it was so cold. The only thing that never seemed to change was the surface of my mothers grave. It was as bare and brown as always.
    December came and went, and then January. In February, the clear cold abrupdy loosed its grasp. The sky filled with clouds and the rains came down, swelling the rivers with water, choking the lanes with mud. Then, one morning, beneath the bare branches of the rose bushes in my mothers garden, I saw that the tenacious green shoots of snowbells were beginning to push their way up through the waterlogged soil. The wood hyacinths in the orchards were right behind them. The first flowers bloomed on the first day of March.
    On the second day, Niccolo came back to the great stone house.
    He rode into the courtyard in the strange and beautiful gleam of twilight, just as the sun came out from behind a cloud. Its rays struck the house, lighting up all the colors within the pale white stone, I wasin my mothers garden, trying to prune the last of the rose bushes before the light expired. I saw the way the house abruptly blazed with color, heard the clatter of horses hooves, Raouls shout. And then I was up and running, pushing the gate from the garden open with both hands, dashing along the side of the house and irito the courtyard.
    Niccolo was still on horseback, on the sleek dappled gray that had been Raoul’s choice, Raoul had one hand in the horses mane, the other on Niccolos leg as it gripped the horses flank. As I rounded the corner, the horse lowered his head and pushed against Raouls chest, hard enough to knock him back five whole steps.
    “He is glad to see you,” I heard Niccolo say, “He’s been doing his best to pull my arms from my sockets ever since we sighted the house.”
    “It’s on top of a hill,” Raoul said,” You can see it for miles.”
    Niccolo laughed. “Believe me, I know.” He saw me then, “Cendrillon!”
    He tossed the reins to Raoul, slid from the horses back, and crossed the courtyard with quick and eager strides to twirl me around in a great rambunctious hug. The kerchief I wear upon my head spun loose and my braids went flying.
    “I am glad to see you,” he said.
    “And I you,” I replied, “Welcome home.”
    “I have seen all the beauties of the court,” Niccolo went on as he set me on my feet, “Not a single one of them can compare to you.”
    “Oh, ho,” Raoul said with a laugh from where he still stood beside the horse. “He has come back to us a silver-tongued courtier You had best watch your step around him, Cendrillon.•”
    I retrieved my kerchief, bound my hair back up. Unbraided and brushed out, my hair falls almost to my knees, but I always keep it covered. Loose hair only gets in the way when I’m working, and I have never quite forgotten the day, when I was twelve and beginning to feel the first stirrings of vanity, that Raoul claimed its color was so bright it kept the villagers awake at night.
    “So,” I heard Old Mathilde’s voice say. “The traveler has come home.”
    “And I bring news,”